The big film-making activity for this month has been competing in the "48 Hours Furious Film-making Competition" in Auckland NZ.
We drew the genre of "Juvenile Delinquent".
We went the same way as last year doing stop motion animation with modelling clay.
One speed-up technique, we did most speech as close-ups by taking only 4 to 6 photos with various mouth positions then throwing those at our 2 x editors to arrange along the timeline opposite the sound. Gets those editors involved early doing "parallel processing".
Best move for this year was to recruit voice actors from a band I worked with to make video clips. This band, the "Frank E Evans Lunchtime Entertainment Band" plugged us into a folkie network of actors, comedians, and children's entertainers and they were great. Soundtrack was directed and recorded as a separate operation some 30km away by my co-director who sent it in by internet.
Generally all went well although we were wildly over-ambitious and we feel amazed that we threw together a result that does kinda reflect most of the story but with the rushed final editing showing. I got it across the finish line with 2 min to go.
"How EUROPE got its Name" is based on a story from ancient Greece. Our ancient city of Tyre 1000BC was mostly made out of file boxes. We printed out paper sheets of computer-file brick, wood and stone textures and glued those on the boxes.
We had some modelling clay characters from last year and earlier movies that we remodelled. We were character and set building till Sat 4:55pm when we fired the first of about 700 stop-motion shots.
Our last year's modelling clay entry, "Dancing with the Pollies", similar approach, is on youtube as a tidied up version:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qD3WkV0sUGg
Reviewer "Godfather" writes:
"How Europe Got Its Name" by MITCIT (Juvenile Delinquent)
These guys always come up with something from left field, and this was no exception.
Where do you find inspiration for a Juvenile Delinquent story? Why, Herodotus, of course! For a claymation musical about a fairly obscure moment in ancient Greek history, this got a huge audience response. B-
Friday, May 30, 2008
Sunday, February 17, 2008
Concert Video Lessons
The big project this month for many of us has been shooting and editing the 40th reunion party concert of the Frank E. Evans Band. We're mostly into doing indie drama so event video gives us some variety. Overall it worked out well. Notes and Lessons:
Best moves: (1) taking the time and trouble to set up some backlighting. (2) using a home-made camera steadying device for hand-held shooting (ref http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~johnny/steadycam/ ). (3) using 4 cameras. (4) using a high definition Canon HV20 for the master wide shot and getting away with digital blow-ups of half of that image in post.
Main lesson: we had some shots with exposure problems - the classic case of spotlit entertainers against a dark background and cameras reading the background and over-exposing the highlights. Next time we need to give our newbie helpers more training and we need to find and use the "spotlight program" setting on the cameras.
Best moves: (1) taking the time and trouble to set up some backlighting. (2) using a home-made camera steadying device for hand-held shooting (ref http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~johnny/steadycam/ ). (3) using 4 cameras. (4) using a high definition Canon HV20 for the master wide shot and getting away with digital blow-ups of half of that image in post.
Main lesson: we had some shots with exposure problems - the classic case of spotlit entertainers against a dark background and cameras reading the background and over-exposing the highlights. Next time we need to give our newbie helpers more training and we need to find and use the "spotlight program" setting on the cameras.
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Review Parachute Music Festival
I'm a secular kind of guy so it was my family who got me along to this Christian music festival. My opinions of what I saw:
BEST PERFORMANCE - "TWINK"
This was a young band let loose for their half-hour in the "Debut" tent. They had supporters running around beforehand holding up advertising posters so I though "good on you" for that effort and braved the journey through the heat to take a look. This was high energy loud enthusiastic rock. I'm guessing here but maybe "Thrash Metal" is the common description in that culture. The madly leaping-about lead singer looked-like a testosterone-fuelled young Tom Cruise but he was upstaged by the even more energetic girl drummer breaking into a stereotypical male role, well done! I could make out very little of the lyrics but they seemed to belong to a comic horror movie and the whole act had a kind of cheeky parody flavour to it, something like "Spinal Tap". This with their enthusiastic sense of fun set "Twink" apart and above the mass of similar bands performing here. "Twink" had what looked like a large crowd of supporters moving, dancing and clapping on cue in front of the stage. This was confirmed by the MC at the end of the set who remarked on so many supporters coming from the small town of Warkworth (ie a long way!). Deep thought - "Split Enz" emerged from Te Awamutu so maybe there is something about NZ small towns and maybe "Twink" is the new "Split Enz"?
WORST PERFORMANCE - "HILLSONG"
This is the house band for a megachurch in Sydney, Australia, and IMHO they did a steretypical performance in that style, lacking in distinctive or original touches. This is easy-listening pop reminding me of Barry Manilow. Out on the edge of a big crowd, I had a Monty Python moment like the sermon scene from "The Life of Brian" where the crowd fringes are struggling to hear what Brian is saying - "blessed are the cheesemakers?". Hillsong sounded to me like this:
Eat baked beans,
Eat baked beans,
For a larger brain,
For a larger brain,
You will mistake me for a shoe
BEST PERFORMANCE - "TWINK"
This was a young band let loose for their half-hour in the "Debut" tent. They had supporters running around beforehand holding up advertising posters so I though "good on you" for that effort and braved the journey through the heat to take a look. This was high energy loud enthusiastic rock. I'm guessing here but maybe "Thrash Metal" is the common description in that culture. The madly leaping-about lead singer looked-like a testosterone-fuelled young Tom Cruise but he was upstaged by the even more energetic girl drummer breaking into a stereotypical male role, well done! I could make out very little of the lyrics but they seemed to belong to a comic horror movie and the whole act had a kind of cheeky parody flavour to it, something like "Spinal Tap". This with their enthusiastic sense of fun set "Twink" apart and above the mass of similar bands performing here. "Twink" had what looked like a large crowd of supporters moving, dancing and clapping on cue in front of the stage. This was confirmed by the MC at the end of the set who remarked on so many supporters coming from the small town of Warkworth (ie a long way!). Deep thought - "Split Enz" emerged from Te Awamutu so maybe there is something about NZ small towns and maybe "Twink" is the new "Split Enz"?
WORST PERFORMANCE - "HILLSONG"
This is the house band for a megachurch in Sydney, Australia, and IMHO they did a steretypical performance in that style, lacking in distinctive or original touches. This is easy-listening pop reminding me of Barry Manilow. Out on the edge of a big crowd, I had a Monty Python moment like the sermon scene from "The Life of Brian" where the crowd fringes are struggling to hear what Brian is saying - "blessed are the cheesemakers?". Hillsong sounded to me like this:
Eat baked beans,
Eat baked beans,
For a larger brain,
For a larger brain,
You will mistake me for a shoe
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
More useful things with cellphones
Ancient as I am, I am making cellphone progress. Mine (see pic) is a "smartphone" which I picked up secondhand in an online auction. Motorola MPX220 which is an early example of running Microsoft Windows Compact Edition on a cellphone. It has room for improvement as a phone - I need to run outside to get a clear conversation where others around me can talk just fine on their cellphones. But as a text device and pocket computer it delivers some nice surprises.
I was talking about "Askar" the book with one of our test readers, when I thought of using the MPX220 as a voice recorder. This worked very well and gave me all the interview details that I could never have recorded just taking notes.
I also find that the program for web access, "Pocket Internet Explorer", can be pointed at HTML files on the plug-in memory card and do a remarkably good job of using the phone as an e-book reader - (see pic below - note "Askar as E-Book" is not available to the public yet). Last night, Bronwyn and I were away from home and we got into debating "Askar" paragraph wording, as one does. We were able to call up the paragraphs in question and decide that they did not need further editing.
I was talking about "Askar" the book with one of our test readers, when I thought of using the MPX220 as a voice recorder. This worked very well and gave me all the interview details that I could never have recorded just taking notes.
I also find that the program for web access, "Pocket Internet Explorer", can be pointed at HTML files on the plug-in memory card and do a remarkably good job of using the phone as an e-book reader - (see pic below - note "Askar as E-Book" is not available to the public yet). Last night, Bronwyn and I were away from home and we got into debating "Askar" paragraph wording, as one does. We were able to call up the paragraphs in question and decide that they did not need further editing.
Monday, January 14, 2008
Book Publishing and First Reviews
An interesting discussion "Tactless Reviewers" has started on Lulu. I thought author Sylvia Semel, writing about her experience with BEING A TWIN, made a good point about how a community of authors should handle initial peer reviews.
I have responded saying that the first few public reviews for the web page of a new self-published book need to be positive else readership and therefore discussion can be severely damaged. If the reviewer feels negative about the book then IMO a private message to the author is the best way to handle that. I know there is a controversy about authors and their friends stacking online review pages with patsy reviews. I suggest the best way for authors and publishers to handle this is to start the page off with reviews from test readers but with statements like this: "Publisher-posted review from John Doe, one of our test readers."
More...
I have responded saying that the first few public reviews for the web page of a new self-published book need to be positive else readership and therefore discussion can be severely damaged. If the reviewer feels negative about the book then IMO a private message to the author is the best way to handle that. I know there is a controversy about authors and their friends stacking online review pages with patsy reviews. I suggest the best way for authors and publishers to handle this is to start the page off with reviews from test readers but with statements like this: "Publisher-posted review from John Doe, one of our test readers."
More...
Friday, January 11, 2008
"Askar" gets publishing industry interest - EBook goes off-line
Our E-Book new media publishing experiment goes off-line until further notice because of conventional publishing possibilities opening up for "Askar". We are guessing that Traditional Publishers would not like an E-Book "on the loose" without heavy security locks so we are taking a wait and see approach.
The Physical Paperback book continues to be published and available at:
http://www.lulu.com/content/1539440
The Physical Paperback book continues to be published and available at:
http://www.lulu.com/content/1539440
Tuesday, January 8, 2008
DIY Bookbinding update
We printed the first copies of the "Askar" book ourselves. The hardest part was diy bookbinding. Following advice found elsewhere on the Internet gave us books that held together OK, but were very flexible at the spine so that the spine artwork was quickly creased and worn by normal handling. But by experiment 15 we have a method that is meeting the challenge of our rather large 464 page epic.
IN BRIEF - Start with contact glue then cover that with cloth-based gaffer tape.
IN DETAIL - Conventional paperback binding is a complex hot glue critical temperature mass production process that is quite impossible to emulate for cottage industry one-offs. My answer is lateral thinking for the niche unpredictable small demand situation - I have after a lot of trials come up with a cloth-tape spine with contact glue. The result is very flexible rather than having the conventional gutter stiffness and some find it a better lie-flat reading experience. Most people who have inspected examples of both have preferred this version. The minority report was concern that the flexible spine would not last but examples have gone through our test reader program with no problems. Hey it's gaffer tape - my film-making influence shows!
We start by using a cotton bud to paint contact glue eg ADOS F2, PASCO on the spine edge of the block of paper including the covers which are separately cut front and back covers to match the paper size. Let that dry then paint another layer. Then cut a piece of gaffer tape and place that sticky side out in a jig (wooden frame) so that it will align with the book block when we stick it on the spine and wrap it about 10mm over the spine edge of the covers.
IN BRIEF - Start with contact glue then cover that with cloth-based gaffer tape.
IN DETAIL - Conventional paperback binding is a complex hot glue critical temperature mass production process that is quite impossible to emulate for cottage industry one-offs. My answer is lateral thinking for the niche unpredictable small demand situation - I have after a lot of trials come up with a cloth-tape spine with contact glue. The result is very flexible rather than having the conventional gutter stiffness and some find it a better lie-flat reading experience. Most people who have inspected examples of both have preferred this version. The minority report was concern that the flexible spine would not last but examples have gone through our test reader program with no problems. Hey it's gaffer tape - my film-making influence shows!
We start by using a cotton bud to paint contact glue eg ADOS F2, PASCO on the spine edge of the block of paper including the covers which are separately cut front and back covers to match the paper size. Let that dry then paint another layer. Then cut a piece of gaffer tape and place that sticky side out in a jig (wooden frame) so that it will align with the book block when we stick it on the spine and wrap it about 10mm over the spine edge of the covers.
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